Rarely On the Same Page
by Kedd
Summary: Everyone seems to have an opinion, except for Jack. But he gets drawn into the debate anyways. Good thing their most pressing concern is a future lack of beer. Team, hints of S/J UST.


**(Rarely) On the Same Page**

**Author:** Kedd  
**Summary:** Everyone seems to have an opinion, except for Jack. But he gets drawn into the debate anyways. Good thing their most pressing concern is a future lack of beer. Team, hints of S/J.  
**Rating: **G  
**Word Count: **2275

* * *

He had been sitting off to the side, quietly nursing a beer and watching as his two geeks got further into their 'debate'. He wasn't sure if he was more amused by how very vehement they were, or the fact that they were arguing the same side, but it was while he was mentally tallying points for both options that they caught him off guard. Daniel peered at him earnestly over the top of his glasses and Carter had swung around from her position up against the arm of the sofa so she had a clear view of his face. "What?" he asked, irritably.

The two of them exchanged glances, a split second connection of blue eyes before they turned back to him. "Well," said Daniel, "What do you think?"

He thought about it briefly. Frankly, it wasn't a subject that concerned him overly much one way or the other. He rarely had time to read a complete book (and if he did, it was usually because he was recuperating after being shot or stabbed or hit with an arrow, so even then he had other things to focus on) and he even more rarely sat down and watched a movie. In fact, most of the movies he had seen recently were at team nights and he couldn't think of any he'd seen recently that fit their criteria.

"I agree with Reynolds." He took another swig of beer to cover the smirk that threatened to break out as this comment launched another bout of righteous outrage. He saw Teal'c giving him a look from the other armchair, and shrugged his shoulders slightly, washing his hands of his part in prolonging the debate. He settled back in his chair with a sigh, allowing his eyes to fall closed as the last rays of the late afternoon sun poured thick and golden through the window. The lingering heat caressed his eyelids and he allowed himself a moment of pure relaxation, letting his muscles sink into the soft fabric of the chair with a tiny sigh. Frankly, he was enjoying listening to the cadence of Daniel and Carter's words across his ears and feeling the steady, reassuring presence of Teal'c nearby. It had been too close, recently. Knowing that his team was here, on Earth, safe and sound was comforting. His awareness of their presence around him helped him relax more than the cold beer and the warm sun combined, and he let his thoughts drift aimlessly while the debate carried on around him.

It was the silence that alerted him and he cracked his eyes open just a smidgeon to see Carter and Daniel looking at him with some combination of curiosity and indulgence. "What?"

This time it was Carter who piped up, "We wanted to know why you agree with Reynolds, sir."

He focused more sharply on their faces. Huh. They really did want to know. Damn. And damn Teal'c, too, the smug Jaffa smirking at him from across the room. Carter and Daniel may not have realized his motives for agreeing with Reynolds, but Teal'c sure did. And now he had to come up with something plausible. "Penelope Cruz is hot."

Carter blinked. Daniel sputtered. Teal'c's smirk grew imperceptibly as his eyebrow arched. Then Daniel became coherent enough to put words together. "That's it? That's your whole argument? 'Penelope Cruz is hot'?"

Jack thought about it briefly, then gave a decisive nod. "Yup."

"But what about the errors made in the name of 'artistic license'?" Daniel asked.

"And the loss of complexity, subtlety, and backplots?" chimed in Carter.

"Whole chunks of books get cut out," added Daniel, "You lose so much detail in the transition from page to screen."

"And you lose the ability to imagine things for yourself," threw in Carter. "Everything's decided for you; you can't picture the characters, or the settings, or anything else. It's just _there._"

He decided to jump back into the conversation. While he liked listening to the rippling tones of their debate, he didn't want the debate directed at him. "What can I say, Carter?" He gave the two of them a look and a slight smirk. "I'm a visual kinda guy." And that provoked the reaction he was looking for: an exasperated 'Jack' from Daniel, a stifled grin from a surprised and amused-in-spite-of-herself Carter, and another damn_ look_ from Teal'c.

"Are not most men 'visual creatures,' O'Neill?" asked Teal'c, solemnly. But Jack knew better. There wasn't an innocent bone in that Jaffa's body, and worse, he knew his face had betrayed his reaction to the question before he managed to get it under control. He gave a little twist with his hand that wasn't holding a beer, sputtered as he thought about how to reply (because while he was pretty damn sure Teal'c was just enjoying his discomfort, there was always the chance that the Jaffa was in earnest), and finally was rescued by Carter.

She was nodding, and had angled herself to better see all of them. "It's usually the case, Teal'c. That's why the lingerie and porn industries do so well."

She was even more evil than Teal'c. He could not believe that Carter was sitting on his sofa, hair highlighted with the late afternoon sun, and talking about lingerie and porn. Hell, he couldn't believe that Daniel's face turned that shade of red so quickly.

"Sam!" Daniel's voice was coloured with some combination of embarrassment, shock, and amusement, but it looked like the latter emotion was breaking through. He saw Carter give the archeologist a quick glance out of the corner of her eye and braced himself for whatever was coming next.

"You don't think women wear high heels, lace, and lingerie because it's _comfortable_, do you?" Oh, he could see the evil glee in her eyes, although her voice held nothing but amusement and a faint note of scorn. "And as for the 'adult film industry'," and he could hear the quotes around those words, "I think you'll find that for women, unlike men, arousal's a more intellectual than visual thing." She gave a shrug. "So, Teal'c, to answer your question, yes, most men are 'visual creatures'."

Teal'c gave a solemn nod, thanking Carter for her reply, and the two of them watched her watch Daniel, as the flustered archeologist's cheeks faded back to a more appropriate skin tone. Honestly, if Carter didn't lose that smug tilt to her lips soon, Daniel was going to be obliged to bring up some sort of cultural fact about the origins of the porn industry and, as fascinating as that may be, Jack didn't really feel like listening to a dissertation on that today. He cleared his throat, drawing their attention back to him. "Are you saying that you didn't think that the presence of Johnny Depp made the movie more _interesting,_ Carter?" He watched as a faint blush spread across her cheeks. He had caught Carter and the Doc detailing the various attributes that made Johnny Depp irresistibly sexy one day in the infirmary and had teased them about it, subtly, for the next several weeks, so he knew it was a good target. Carter was a tough cookie to crack though, and the way she met his eyes meant that she wasn't going to back down.

She gave an airy shrug. "Oh, I'm not denying the fact that Johnny Depp's hot, sir. But that's not my entire argument for why movie adaptations are better than the books."

And damn her, too. He should have known better, though. Trying to get Carter off a topic once it had her attention was worse than getting Daniel away from a fresh pot of coffee.

Based on the glint in her eyes, he knew that she knew he'd be obligated to attempt to defend his position after a comment like that. That was the problem with having friends who knew you well – they always knew exactly what buttons to push. "_I_ never said it was my _entire_ argument, Carter. You two just jumped right in and swam with it." Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Teal'c opening his mouth (undoubtedly to suggest that this had, in fact, been O'Neill's intention), but he wasn't about to allow the Jaffa to have another opportunity to gloat this afternoon. He stood, stretched elaborately, and headed for the kitchen. If this conversation was going to continue in the direction he thought it was, he needed more beer. He grabbed another couple bottles of Guinness from the fridge, along with some of that swill Daniel liked, a soda for Teal'c, and a couple more of the bags of snack food that were lying on the counters. If he was going to be dragged into their debate he was at least going to do it with beer and on a full stomach.

Once the beer and munchies had been replenished, Jack took his sweet time settling back into his chair, but even with every stall tactic he could think of it was obvious that he hadn't managed to defer his team's curiosity.

Carter had settled back into a corner of the couch, a handful of chips in her hand and her legs tucked up underneath her, making her appear a lot smaller than she was. "So, sir, if we just overtook the conversation, what's the rest of your argument?" She popped a cashew into her mouth, her blue eyes watching him with an evil glee.

Jack waved his hands in protest, "I don't mind you taking over - at least," he amended, "not while we're on-world and safe and just talking about movies."

He could feel Teal'c smirking at him.

Carter just looked at him, all wide-eyed and innocent. He didn't believe it for a second.

Daniel rolled his eyes. He had a belligerent look in his eye and a tilt to his chin that meant he wasn't going to back down. "Fine, you think the movies are better than the books?" He paused, as if he was waiting for Jack to condemn himself further. "Name some."

Jack sighed. You'd think they could let it go and just enjoy the afternoon. "Alright. Fine._ Rambo. Die Hard._" He smirked. "_The Wizard of Oz._" He paused, and then, just to throw them. "_Little Women._" He could be just as damn stubborn as Daniel any day. The looks of bafflement that went across Daniel and Carter's faces completely justified any lingering qualms he had about throwing the last one on the list. Teal'c, as usual, just looked intrigued.

Unsurprisingly, it was Carter who questioned him. "I didn't realize that _Rambo_ and _Die Hard_ were based on books, sir."

He gave her a faint nod. "Most people don't, Carter." He saw Daniel open his mouth, and threw up a hand in warning, "Ah! Just because you haven't seen these cinematic masterpieces doesn't make them any less eligible as my examples. If you'd just take your head out of musty rocks once in awhile, you'd know what I was talking about." Daniel gave a brief pout and looked ready to protest until Jack continued, "Hey. I know for a fact T's seen three of those four, and he's only been on Earth for five years. You have no excuse." Daniel shut up then, but the glares Jack was receiving meant that he should look out for a whole hell of a bunch of archeological survey missions in the future. Or maybe just particularly long mission reports mysteriously missing their bullet point summaries. Oi. "And," he added, with an emphatic tilt of his bottle, "I'm not saying that L. Frank Baum didn't write a few masterpieces in the whole _Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ series, but, really, that gingham dress was pretty sweet."

That at least got a smile and a shake of the head out of Carter.

"Besides," he added, "If you've ever read Ian Flemming's novels, well, Sean Connery blows them out of the water."

Daniel gawked at him, "Seriously, James Bond is your argument?"

Jack glared at him. "Who can argue with James Bond?"

Carter giggled. Jack felt the sound wash over him like a gentle breeze, and felt his muscles relax. This is what they'd been missing recently, the meaningless time spent together arguing over nothing, with nothing more urgent hanging over their heads than the possibility of running out of beer at some distant point in the future. Even Daniel was beginning to look a little loose.

Teal'c, on the other hand, just looked puzzled. "Who is this James Bond?"

Jack paused for a second in shock, then clapped his hands together, standing up. "That's it," he said digging into his jean's pocket and tossing his keys at Teal'c, "Movie night is now a 007 marathon." Daniel looked horrified and then resigned, Teal'c intrigued, and he couldn't read the look on Carter's face. "Teal'c, you're driving."

As the guys moved off, presumably to gather their shoes and coats, Carter slowly unfolded herself from the sofa. "Really, sir, Sean Connery? I was always more of a Roger Moore fan myself."

Jack smirked, stealing a cashew from her half-full palm, letting the tips of his fingers just trail across her skin as he did so. "Well then, we'll just have to get some of each." He looked into her trusting eyes, "And more beer. For Daniel. To numb his pain when he discovers that I'm right again."

And with her laughter, Daniel's grumbling, and Teal'c silence filling his ears, Jack felt that he could manage. After all, despite their different points of view, they were in it together.

**End**


End file.
